


Better Than Bedfellows

by Abby_Ebon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fairy, Goblins, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Male Slash, Multi, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:25:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter "closer to thirty now" was in the midst of a war, a war he was losing. A war he wasn't sure was worth the winning. Isn't it surprising what stepping back through time a dozen years will do for your outlook?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Soaked Up Like A Sponge

**Author's Note:**

> Sabishii Kage Tenshi (of FF.Net) challenge, rewritten in my (Abby Ebon) own words; Set in the summer after fourth year, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin encounter "Harry", already intoxicated, in a pub not entirely somber themselves, it results in that the three then wake up snuggled naked together like puppies come dawn. Sex to be more then a little implied. Prophesy can play a part if it grows to be a chapter story.

Harry Potter was laid out on his belly. His head tilted toward the window, dirty ill-colored curtains had likely plotted for the blinding beam of happy sunshine to wake him, splashed across his face. Such a plot was foiled, due to a headache verging to migraine levels that he _knew_ could only be explained by multiple accounts of alcohol. Harry had worked with wand cores more volatile – that was not what had waked him.

This was a case of instinct. Something had changed, he was being watched – he might as well be in very real danger. A shift of his hips and shoulders let him know he was not alone. The weight of arm was about his shoulders, fingers touching tenderly at his neck – barely there. There was warm thigh thrown carelessly over his hips, pinning him to the damp sheets. He did not remember if the sheets had ever been dry.

Wary now, he turned his head away from the window (and its sly sunlight) and looked to one side – his companion was a rough looking fellow, stubble along his cheeks and jaw – shallow eyes (this one didn't get much sleep, by the looks of things) though there was a look of calm about him. He, at least was content – so well he should be, he was the owner of the thigh against his hips, there was a throbbing erection pressing insistently to his buttocks. Ginger hair tickled his nose. It was almost endearing.

Harry wasn't truly surprised at the look of him, he'd been lucky this time; he usually went for the more dangerous ones. He didn't know if he subconsciously had a death wish, or his libido was just that warped for rough sex. The ones he chose were often those whose natures verged to moralistic dark, insofar as the rest of the world may care. Harry had learned quickly not to trust his bed partners, and though as a rule he did not kill anyone in the bedroom, it did not stop him from stalking them a few blocks and putting a well placed knife in a heart deserving to be stopped.

Harry narrowed his eyes, green glinting as he inhaled the strangers scent – familiar, everyone and everything in this room was so _wrongly familiar_. It told him one unhappy fact. He was not where he had been when he went to sleep. Something was off. It tugged at his magic like something not-quite forgotten. Or a qualm that his conscious had; those were, now a days, few and far between. He could not afford a conscious. He was in the midst of a war, a war he was loosing. A war he wasn't sure was worth the winning.

He heard an inhaled breath, then a sigh that could have been a yawn. The bed dipped as a stranger stretched. Harry peeked over the wiry chest of his closest bedmate to get a look at the _second_ one. He should have suspected that there would be two, with the mood he had been in last night. He would not have fallen asleep for less. His heart ached, lurched. A dozen, a fucking dozen years; his first true loss of this be damned war, it still ached. He should have shut his eyes tightly after a glimpse of dark hair, a little past shoulder length, and quick stormy grey eyes. The high cheek bones, gaunt cheeks, and the aristocratic tilt of his chin. It was how Harry remembered him best, recovering from the hell that had been Azkaban.

' _Damn it_ …' Harry let his eyes trail longingly over that body, the familiar features. Scars in all the right places; or about where Harry had guessed they might be. He had never had his godfather as a bedroom partner, never known such a body in the reality as a fifteen year old boy when Sirius had gone through the veil and not come back. He was no teenager now, closer to thirty then twenty. Still, this was reality, a stark contrast to the delirium of alcohol and lust.

This was a trap. It had to be. This was what his instincts were screaming of – to warn him of this danger. There could be no other reason; no one could have looked so like Sirius on purpose. It _might_ be polyjuice. No way to really tell. Harry did what he did best, he reacted – he felt the pulse of wants, their cores as familiar to him as heartbeats – he reached, and then paused as fathomless grey eyes caught his own green ones. His heart wanted to believe.

' _Who are your holders…?_ ' If ever these two had looked differently then they did now – their wands would betray them. A wand chose its wizard. Yet a wand and its core "remembered" being crafted, and would spill secretes to such a mind if it recognized a similarity (though no two wand makers were alike, all wand makers could not help but think similar) so though Harry had not crafted these wands they recognized him as a wand maker.

_Sirius Black._ A barking laugh, a gangly black haired child whose green eyes hid behind glasses; he barely recognized this image as his third year self – and Buckbeak, proud and grey, it didn't strike him until now that Sirius must have sympathized with the hippogriff more then Harry had understood at the time; both were trying to do the right thing, only to end up at the wrong end of laws that should have been rewritten before their births. A flicker of Harry as he was now, being kissed by Remus – desire and lust and a bit of jealously left over let Harry know Sirius had been touching his wand if the echo was so strong. Memories seeped into a wand, a wand developed a personality of sorts based on such contact.

_Remus Lupin._ An eerie howl, a full moon that was tainted a rusty color like dried blood, scraped off, but not quite gone; Sirius, as he looked now, and as he looked as a boy – Lily, James – there was rage that Harry found himself distressed by even though it was directed toward Peter. The last image was of Harry – not that of a fifteen year old, but as the thirty year old self; eyes half lidded, a smug smile on his lips. Looking as if he ought to be kissed or slapped. There was no emotion to this, merely a flicker of memory – something the wand core eagerly washed over him at his asking.

Such resounding echoes – truths that could not be denied, least he taint all that Ollivander had taught him. Harry did not dare reach further. He did not know what to do with himself as it was. This was not a trap. If it was a trick, it was a very elaborate one – such lengths that only the fae folk would go to. They would have reasons too. There was no reason for this. Even if there were a reason – perhaps to teach him not to leap to conclusions or to take care to what he wished for, or not to think and act first and follow his heart second. Their magic – even if they did not know - would recognize that he had puzzled their riddle out. It would have let it fade by now.

_It was not fading._ Nothing was hazing about the edges. Remus and Sirius did not glow within to an eternal unearthly cold flame. There ears were not even remotely pointy. It remained a reality, settled with a soul taste that lingered in his mouth, like backwash alcohol. Outlined by stark, bold lines; an all too real migraine that fluttered at the edges of his thoughts.

"You alright..?" It was a rough voice, an almost growl – as grating as his new reality. He almost did not recognize it.

Sirius.

Green eyes flicked toward the strangers – _**no**_ , toward Sirius – to Remus, he was partly dismayed to realize they were waking.

"Fine" Harry murmured, even if he wasn't.

Amber-brown eyes fluttered open, Harry did not have time to realize that with his messy hair, and disarrayed bangs – his pale scar would be boldly and clearly visible against the stark contrast of his tanned skin. He would be exposed. Harry did not think Sirius and Remus would be pleased to know they had fucked the thirty-year-old version of their dead best friend. Frantic for a way to avoid questions – just for a little while longer, Harry looked toward the too bright light of the sun shining through the dusty curtains into the dank little room with a too full bed.

He did not have to fake the sickened groan that passed his lips. His migraine, like a vengeful boy band drummer, went from fluttering butterfly to pounding-nail into skull.

"Can I get you anything?" It was awkwardly spoken, though there was no stutter to the words. Harry practically _felt_ the glance the two must have shared. Remus had spoken that time.

"No." Harry did not fake his annoyance.

"By the way I'm Sirius – this is Remus…" There was amusement in the rough tones, alongside the vague curiosity. They did not know who he was; he had not given them his name. His tensed shoulders nearly slumped with relief. It was enough he was bare-assed, and had a _very good memory_ of how it felt to have Sirius' cock sliding thick and hard down his throat, while Remus thrust up his ass; without wondering what the hell he _said_.

"Don't care." He almost hissed the very-not-true words.

Remus flinched, even as he carefully moved his thigh and leg away, unpinning his hips. Harry felt the movement keenly, jolting into his chest. It hurt, but it would hurt Remus worse to know _Harry_ was the rude jerk with shoulder-length black haired, a man with lovely sun kissed skin and gleaming green eyes – rude as he was, his back to his bed partners. It was not the best of reassurances. He fought himself not to turn around and beg Remus to forgive him. To lick his lips and reassure Sirius that it would be better this way.

"Right" Sirius was becoming angry, withdrawing the arm with fingers that had tensed into a fist. It was a very real threat. Harry, hating himself, didn't really care. He knew he might more-then-a-little deserve it. He was worse then a coward. He was hurting them, rejecting them.

"We'll be going then. Remy, c'mon." Harry pressed his face into the pillow, feeling their movements, their distance, as if each were a physical blow. He heard them dressing, the slid of cloth over flesh, the pang of wand cores responding to their wizards touch. When he was sure they were gone, he lifted his head from the smothering cloth of a feather pillow. He had not known he had been crying.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Harry licked away amber liquor that coated his lips. He had a very good idea of where he was time-wise; all it had taken was a step out of the smoky smelling inn. Diagon Alley. In his own time, on his sixteenth birthday, Tom had given him it, allowing the Order and a handful of Hit-wizards and Aurors though – they saw a crumbled ruin; blood still stained the earth there. Everyone had been slaughtered. Few knew what had become of the goblins, though Gringotts still stood, it was sealed – impenetrable.

He might have forgotten, over the years, how it felt to have wizards and witches roaming about freely, their magic a heartbeat of tangled webs battering at the inside of his skull. His migraine got a little worse. He thought he now knew _why_. He dealt with sensitive magic, this was anything but subtle. It was like a target smeared into the very foundation.

No wonder Tom had targeted Diagon Alley after Hogwarts had fallen to his whims – this, too, was a keystone.

He felt like a relic, some bit of tarnished metal that clung unwanted to the present. In truth, he was what this world would become; if he let things go on without interfering. Harry could not believe – would not believe – that he had slipped into the past to watch it all happen again.

A smile that was not pleasant crossed his lips.

He was determined to change things; with what he knew – that the goblins and magical creatures had defenses that wizards and witches did not. He knew with what to start. He had to bring about an alliance. Tom did not yet have much of a foothold, he had not stolen the blood that flowed through Harry's veins – the ministry, while tainted, was not yet unredeemable. Though it was all true, Harry did not yet know how much time he had. Sirius had escaped Azkaban in his third year – but it was not until he was fourteen that Sirius and Remus were on speaking terms and within Grimmauld; safe until near the end of his fifth year.

Harry saw only one choice left to him – he _had_ to have someone from this time-and-place to help him, Remus and Sirius were not a option, his younger self did not have any contacts outside Dumbledore, and Albus was a unknown Harry would not chance just yet. That left one man; a man who had never been surprised when Harry arrived, who had been dead a half-year to Harry in his own time, who had taught Harry everything he knew about wand making.

It was almost a physical pain to step through Ollivander's door, the scent of wood, of leather and velvet and silken cloths assaulted his nose. It was so quite – so withdrawn, something almost cold and abandoned about it that Harry feared he might have gotten it wrong. That he might be wrong, that Ollivander might have been taken by Death Eaters sooner then he had thought.

All his fear faded when a chill breeze swirled curiously about him. It brought to memory snowy mountains and distant places Harry had never laid eyes on.

"Well, I must say; _you_ are not whom I expected…Harry Potter…" Harry licked his lips, more then a little nervous as he turned to face Ollivander. Slight in size, though taller then Harry, his skin snow pale and as deadly and delicate looking as ice. There was no fae folk cold flame glow. Harry knew that what a wizard or witch _expected_ to see of Ollivander was what they did see. It was an illusion that Ollivander was very good at. Harry was not so easily fooled.

Ollivander himself had shown him his true appearance, and such things could not be easily undone. Certainly not by a mere slip through more then a dozen years of time; a slight widening of Ollivander's eyes told Harry that Ollivander recognized that he was being seen, _truly seen_ , perhaps for the first time in over a thousand years; having lived since 382 B.C. was a very long time amongst mortals, even mortals as long lived as wizards and witches.

"Ollivander, 'ello, I've much to tell you." Harry's wide smile was genuine, perhaps for the first time since waking that morning.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O


	2. Hung Out To Dry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In thanks, spiralgal, this chapter is for you.

"It's hardly fair," Ollivander murmured in his usual soft spoken way, "for you to know me in such a way, and I not to know you in turn." Contrary to the calm tones, silver eyes had narrowed, though not in the usual way, pale pupils were whitening and cat-like. Harry breathed in, unable to help himself, anything from Ollivander was better then no reaction at all.

"Oh, we know each other very well, in the _proper_ time and place." Harry had stepped closer, licking his lips as if to taste Ollivander in the very air. It wasn't the strangest thing that could happen, and it certainly wasn't entirely without its own truth and benefits. He knew he was leering, his expression caught between worryingly open and devastatingly _hungry_ , and that to someone who didn't _know_ Ollivander for what he was…. whatever disguise he hid behind in their eyes, well, it would be a strange and obscene sight, indeed.

Harry was quite aware of what Ollivander truly looked like, and it drew him, pulled at him tighter and harder and faster then even the cold flame beauty of a fae. Harry had nothing to compare him to; because nothing like Ollivander had been spoken to, truly, or _looked_ at since wizards and witches had fled the forests to hide in plain sight.

"Indeed, I imagine we do. This is hardly either, rather, neither, Mr. Potter." Ollivander, openly alarmed now at Harry's predatory approach, had taken a step back. Harry stopped mid-step, heart aching within his chest. Ollivander had been many things to him, and in none of them had Ollivander _ever_ feared him enough to take a step away. Harry well knew what he looked like; it would be like something off a primitive battle field. Wild black hair falling in disarray to broad shoulders, green eyes gleaming with lust unable to turn away from Ollivander; it was unnerving, that intent focus, narrow-minded intensity.

Harry had once - long ago, feared what Ollivander did to him, could do to him – and what Harry would allow Ollivander to do to him without a struggle. He had never thought that Ollivander would fear for him, or fear him, for what Harry did to his control. Harry had above all trusted Ollivander, implicitly, and in the days of Dumbledore's death, and Hagrid's well intentioned betrayal, Ollivander had known Harry's trust for the gift it was.

"I know you, son of Khione, do not _dare_ dismiss me." It was hissed, and Harry knew his living-green eyes had flashed snow-silver in his anger, fear, and need. That was an old mark, Ollivander had told him, that the essence of what he was had penetrated Harry, and Harry would not remain unaffected. Ollivander was what he was, and Harry had never begrudged his eerie green-silver flashing eyes, finding odd comfort in them – now, he was glad he could claim such uncorrectable a manifestation of their connection. Ollivander stood frozen, silver eyes wide, knowing he would not mistake such a seeing, or having heard _his mother's name_ on Harry's lips.

"We know each other so well, truly? I would never. I need to _see_." Ollivander begged, breathlessly, his words running together in a rush. He knew he did not have much time to find out, for sure, what Harry was to him. Either he must accept it, or he could reject it -possibly making the worst of mistakes of his long life. All the while, Harry, content that he had shocked Ollivander into listening, had walked closer. They now stood face to face, and Harry could not help smiling almost gently at Ollivander, expectant – waiting - even as he spoke.

"Then see, and _know_ truth." _Know me, again_. Harry did not say, but it was heard between them. There was little Harry could ever hide from Ollivander, and less that he would. The fingers of Ollivander's hands rubbed together uneasily, but Harry waited as he knew what was coming. Narrow silver eyes regarded him sternly.

"It may harm, you; I do not want that. Even not _knowing_ you, as you know me, you are… _precious_ to me." Ollivander paused, and Harry knew this not-human was remembering him – not the Harry who stood before him now, but the Harry of this time and place, a boy with earnest green eyes and a trustworthy face. Young, so very young, was Harry's own thought, even now he knew they were one and the same – but not – they would never be so very alike now, he would not allow it. Yet he reached all the same for some contact in the here and now, and feared being cast aside – lost.

"Please…?" Harry begged with open eyed trust, he knew what he asked and knew what it would cost both of them. A breeze ruffled his mane of black hair, and just like that faint touch of nothingness, did he know that Ollivander's finger tips touched his. No place on the body of a wizard –or witch - was as sensitive as their hands, where magic was pulled and tied to.

What he was doing was a dangerous thing, Ollivander had been wand-making before he was born, even given that he was not human, and to trust this much in another, to surrender so fearlessly, was a fool's thing to do. Harry, though, knew he'd always had a bit of the reckless fool within him. If it was Tom or any other Death Eater who he was giving himself over to in this way, his mind would be subdued and trapped within another's, without hope of escape from within, while his body and magic was used like a puppet.

Even the first time they'd done this thing, it had been no thing done with any intent of a reasoning mind – it had been instinct, survival had bonded their magic and minds with a memory, a impression one might even call living-remembrance and not be a wholly wrong, so Harry could always say that he knew himself and knew Ollivander's wishes, and not be lying. Even with this same wand-makers death, in Harry's time - Harry had kept a living – but not - piece of what and who Ollivander was within him. Between them, the bond had been a halved whole, with neither Ollivander nor Harry being subservient, nor dominating to the other's control or lack.

The bond made them into _something_ else, and that was what Harry shared a glimpse of with this Ollivander of the here and now. He wasn't fool enough to re-create that sort of bond with this near-stranger who was the self-same named Ollivander, yet was not _his_ Ollivander.

It was a painful difference, but one that Harry clung to, and did not loose sight of in the midst of their minds and magic melding. Ollivander saw this bond between Harry and this other-him, and knew that Harry would not fall into the trap of thinking one Ollivander the same as another. With the meld between them broken, but the bond between Harry and the other-Ollivander still there, yet out of Ollivander's sight – so to speak, Ollvander stepped away. Harry let him, his aching head allowing some clarity from thoughts he did not like the nature of, suddenly springing forth. But Ollivander, whatever time or place, was not one to let riddles or puzzles lay.

"Why can he not pull you back?" _From here, from me?_ Harry wanted to laugh, but it was not the good sort of laugher normal people so often indulged. He stopped himself, and opened his eyes – colors whirled and faded and danced – but Ollivander as Harry saw him was always clear. Wizard sight was a tricky thing to think about.

"He's dead." It descended between them, that knowledge – like a black cloaked and beaked scavenger bird of the dead – that yearning in Harry's voice was one and the same as the doomed carrier of death, his yearning for death, to follow, even if it was denied him until the end of his war came about, he still hungered for it.

Hungered so much for it that the bond had shattered the barriers between times near and far, reaching and twisting back a dozen years to place him here, something it would not do for a mere wizard – but what was Harry, now, really? He was no more _mere wizard_ then Ollivander.

"What will you do?" Harry had thought he'd known, thought it was simple – he'd change things, he'd keep Ollivander safe and alive – but for what? Not for him, because this was not his Ollivander, and the bond would not send him back while it hurt so much to see one Ollivander and to wish to join another in death. The bond could not – would not – kill him; after all, it was a bond with a god. Or, really, the closest being to a god that nature could invent.

"Heal; I suppose I could do no less or more." Harry answered in the only way he could, for what he was doing here…it certainly wasn't _good_. So far, hurting his godfather and Remus with disregarding words, and teasing Ollivander with a bond with a wizard he might never have in this here and now, and would not have known of – cursed now, for he mourned and yearned for it as keenly as Harry would mourn for his own Ollivander - if Harry hadn't shown up.

His fault, all of this – again – it made Harry feel sickened. What had _the bond_ done, after all, now was his fault, his guilt. Harry was not really aware of sinking to the floor, not that he would care. But, Ollivander _did_ see, and his eyes widened in alarm to see this depression clinging to the man a boy he knew and liked – had given his first wand to, no less – had become.

"A good start, in the meantime, you have no small amount of skills that we need. I propose a bargain, of sorts, you have no money, no place to stay, so I will house, feed and cloth and provide what means of currency can be gotten and acquired for your use. You will stay, in turn, and help me turn the tide of this war that isn't yours, yet is." Ollivander was not looking at him when Harry glanced to the white haired and snow pale being, yet Harry had the feeling he had been looked at, none the less. It annoyed him somewhat, that Ollivander would purpose to tell him what he already knew.

"I had _intended_ to." Harry regarded Ollivander with his arms on his bent knees, still upon the dusty wood floor, his head on his arms. It was a sour sort of look he gave, and he had no qualms with meeting the silver gaze that returned to meet his.

"Of course you did." Soothing now, of course, Harry expected nothing less. It was almost as maddening as if Harry had had some sort of temper tantrum and must now make up for it. For all he knew, that's exactly as Ollivander this saw all this as – some brat almost-godling's hick-up in time. It sort of made Harry's head hurt in a way that had nothing to do with wine. He knew less about what the bond was doing _to him_ , then he knew the results of what he – and it – did to what went on _around him_.

"I really sort of resent that, what sort of man do you take me for? I have a better character then you give me credit to." Harry knew he was _whining_ , and he hated that he was seeking approval from this Ollivander (or any, really, save the one that was now dead and beyond approving of him or not) who treated him as a child, and made Harry – in turn – react as a child would. Or perhaps he had never grown up, for who really could when spending their teenage years about those that counted magic as an every day reality? Or would deny magic entirely, as his Uncle and Aunt had? It felt as if all his life, he'd been caught between these two extremes.

"Prove me wrong then." Mocking, but Harry realized what Ollivander was doing in provoking him; any reaction must seem better then no reaction at all. Harry could appreciate that, if nothing else.

"How could I resist such an offer?" Harry teased in turn, to which Ollivander merely smiled, but it seemed enough. Harry prepared himself to get off the floor, when there came the clang of bells above the protesting squeak of hinges, Ollivander had, after all, invested in an alarm of sorts that was not triggered by magic alone. That itself was an alien concept among the pure-blooded wizards and witches, that they might be attacked by something like muggle means.

Harry was tucked out of sight from the newcomers, whoever they might be, behind the counter where Ollivander stood. That did not, however, stop him from recognizing voices.

"Ollivander, it's good to see you." Warm and affectionate but with the wariness that had never been far from him, Remus sounded well. Harry closed his eyes, and felt he was doomed to be followed by this two and reminded always of the first mistake he'd made in hurting them.

It did, however, make him wonder about what Ollivander's loyalties had been that Harry hadn't known of. Obviously he had stood beside the Order, but Harry hadn't thought of the blow that Dumbledore must have felt at loosing Ollivander. He found a new sympathy in him for his once mentor and old manipulator. Nothing stopped Ollivander from using others, Harry knew, but Ollivander did not care to do so for all that he had the power and will for it. It took a different sort to use people and discard them, and that was the sort of person Harry feared he'd become, always.

If he stopped fearing it, he'd worry he was that sort after all, and Dumbedore had had the right of it all along; only such a person that could use others to the benefit of the greater good could defeat the Dark Lord. Yet Harry thought that would make him as bad as Tom, and Harry was no Dumbledore to turn aside great power after the battle was done, if it was offered up on a plate.

"Ah, boys...I hope you were not planning any mischief?" Ollivander asked, distracting Harry from his unwelcome musings. It was apparent that whatever the media said about werewolves and mass murderers, Ollivander had turned a deaf ear and blind eye. As the old sang went, see no evil, hear no evil…

"Well, not any that Dumbledore _wouldn't_ approve of…" Sirius sounded, for once, not like a growling dog, but the playful youth he might have been.

"In that case, what can I do to lend you aid?" Surprisingly, Ollivander sounded just as teasing and carefree, and Harry wondered if he could ever do such, tossing away his jaded habits in favor of a lighter burden.

"I need, of course, a wand. I meant to come by yesterday but…well, we went drinking." Harry could imagine the rest of that result without any further hinting, he had, after all, had a part to play in that indulgence of freedom that Sirius and Remus had briefly grasped.

"A likely excuse to the neglect of acquiring a wand, I take it?" Remus snorted softly at the quietly mocking note that Ollivander had taken, and Harry heard Sirius lean his weight against the counter, he looked at it, alarmed for a moment that it would come crashing down and reveal him, with Sirius all but atop him. Again.

"Not at all, but – please, if you think you could make it worth the while of standing about rather then drinking out?" Face flushed and his thoughts elsewhere, he did not notice Ollivander nudge him with a booted toe, when he looked up with raised eyebrows, Ollivander looked to the cabinet beside him, where he could reach a box and the wand within. The look said clearly enough, _fetch it_.

As the consequences of _not_ doing so would be Ollivander attempting it himself only for him to either end up tumbled into Harry's lap or a tangle limbs, Harry did so without much thought behind the act. As result he was startled when Ollivander grasped his wrist and hauled him upward, to his feet, and in plain sight of both Remus and Sirius, both. Harry let out a barely heard groan, and there was a satisfied look on Ollivander's face, and Harry knew he would be getting no apology at the end of the day.

" _You_!" Sirius was a mix of surprise and snarling rage.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter in which I take Greek mythology and run away with it a bit. What you may, or may not know is this; a little known mythology, if you will, it circulates that there was a goddess of khiôn – ' snow' as it translates, called today either Chione or Khione. Four sides of the same coin, to say - the tales of her are as follows; daughter of Boreas the north wind (in which she bore the singer Eumolpos, to Poseidon) by Oreithyia (who also bore him Kleopatra, and a pair of winged sons named Zetes and Kalais)
> 
> …or the lady-nymph of mountain gales, once a mortal princess.
> 
> Also, another, as consort of Boreas, with whom he had three giant-kings sons, the immortal priests of the Hyperborea.
> 
> Yet another Khione was the nymph of the Greek island Chios, with whom Poseidon had the child who was to be king of Chios, and also called Chios; after being born in a snowfall, the child was thrown to the ocean, and saved by Poseidon.
> 
> I think you might know who Ollivander's mother is now, and, in turn, what he is. The question now becomes, is he king of a Greek island, sea-prince singer, or a giant priest-king of a fabled forever-spring paradise land?


	3. Rinse & Repeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place the summer before Fourth Year (so far). Bellow is the difference in "Younger" and "Elder" Harry's history.
> 
> 5th: The Worst Year (A Timeline)
> 
> -Ollivander convinces the fae folk to ally with the Order.
> 
> -Hagrid goes in search of giants with Grawp/Madame Maxime.
> 
> * Giants are age old enemies of Trolls (a breed of fae folk).
> 
> * Giants claim to want to assist the Order, but want to meet Dumbledore; Hagrid agrees.
> 
> -Harry has 'vision' of Sirius dying; he arrives at the Ministry of Magic.
> 
> *Sirius dies.
> 
> -Voldemort takes Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Village in one swoop.
> 
> *Hagrid is betrayed by Giants, who aid in attacking Hogwards - thus betraying the Order. Dumbledore dies.
> 
> -Diagon Alley's falls for Harry's sixteenth birthday gift.
> 
> -Harry and Ollivander go to Underhill (Fae folk).

_As result he was startled when Ollivander grasped his wrist and hauled him upward, to his feet, and in plain sight of both Remus and Sirius, both. Harry let out a barely heard groan, and there was a satisfied look on Ollivander's face, and Harry knew he would be getting no apology at the end of the day._

_"_ You _!" Sirius was a mix of surprise and snarling rage._

"Me." Harry returned, dryly. Ollivander had let his wrist go, so Harry in turn offered up the wand and its box to Sirius. Vaguely he wondered if his wrist was going to be bruised, for Ollivander was _much_ stronger then he ought to be by looks, in disguise or not. If he did bruise, it was nothing new, and probably what he deserved just as well.

"Who _are_ you?" Sirius was looking him over with a leer of barely disguised contempt. That might be due to Remus having flinched, just a little at the sight of him; Harry couldn't blame either of them for that, though he did wish that Remus would look him in the eyes. He also thought the leer Sirius gave might have a promise of last night in it; despite the look and the words, he barely noticed the sudden lightness of his hands.

"Me?" Harry parroted his earlier word, pointing to himself now that the wand (its core a ripple of dragon heartstring and willow) was out of his hands. Sirius had never seemed so skittish of anyone that Harry remembered. Then again, he'd never witnessed his godfather in this sort of situation.

Sirius bared his teeth in some expression that was certainly not a smile. It was more of a snarl.

" _Yes_." That was certainly a growl.

"Elder at your service," Harry bows as best he can behind a countertop. He hides a grin as he thinks ' _why not?_ ' remembering this is the time of his younger self; and between them both – well, really, he's a intruder, and has the less right of the name. If nothing else, it'll stand as a reminder.

"Elder…?" Remus speaks, taking a sideways peek at him as if to double-check; Harry startles his best teacher by openly looking back, and winking. Harry knows, savage as he looks – and savage war lends a look of age that few can deny after being touched by it, they would not mistake his age as being much older then their own. Clearly the 'name' then isn't a title – certainly, at least not in the way they think.

"Elder _what_ …?" Harry shrugs a slender shoulder at Sirius, taking a look at Ollivander. It seems a confused look, but it's more of an imploration, ' _play with me_?' this look says one fae to another fae; that's the beauty of it. Ollivander would recognize it – having lived among them as Harry has– though Harry isn't fae any more then his mentor is, and he _does_ know that look, if the raised eyebrow is anything to go by.

"I don't really know." It sounds like a hushed confession – coming ashamed from Harry's lips.

"You don't know your _own name_?" Includes and a bit outraged, is Sirius's disbelief. A flush comes to Harry's cheeks, though it would seem like embarrassment rather then in ire.

"No, I do not. Do I - Uncle?" At that word, from Harry's lips, Ollivander all but flinches away from his eyes. Harry looks away, cautious, as it would not be good to seem to challenge Ollivander, who, he'd forgotten, had so recently sampled his memories. He would know who Vernon was, and what the word _uncle_ had always meant to his Harry: yet, irony of age, Harry had as good as forgotten – buried among older sorrows his childhood paled in comparison of everything else so new and painfully sharp.

Ollivander would have looked to those memories most keenly, for _his_ Harry was yet so taught by experience and roughly aged _; not yet – not ever_ , Harry vows as he keeps his eyes on the wall of wands behind the counter. Harry hadn't realized what a mere _word_ would do to his mentor; Harry closed his eyes – freshly pained at bringing pain to Ollivander when he hadn't meant it. Not that he'd ever _mean_ it.

Ollivander looks up when Harry doesn't expect it, and his own eyes open not knowing the other sought his glance – it was a unguarded moment, and such moments are precious few and rightly so, for they are dangerous for those like Ollivander and he. Their eyes meet, a glance at the critical unguarded moment – and it is enough for Harry to know he's thrown his own thoughts between them, and it rings fading into echoes.

 _So this is what it is, to remember being human, yet not being human at all_. Harry can't help the thought, can't take it back. He doesn't know if he would, even if he could. The bond that had been, that was and was not, it made them more then wizards, more then human. Not that Harry thought Ollivander had never been human or wizard; no, but he certainly had _learned_ better then most what those words felt and meant, living among unseen for so long.

In terms of the bond, they were _father, brother, friend:_ but the bond was broken between Harry and _his_ Ollivander, leaving this Ollivander something like a uncle to a stray estranged orphan. That was how Harry had meant that term, that supposed endearment, the pain of family terms had lost it's meaning to Harry, use them as he must among fae. Ironic that Ollivander, a non-human, could yet still be more _humane_ then any living human relative Harry could ever claim.

"Your own fault I suspect…" Ollivander whispers like a taunt, haunting them both with the hurt so freshly between them. Ollivander looks on at him, as Harry bows his head in something like blame settling its weight on him, but between them the meaning is clear: it is true apology, a gesture that says _I trust you_. Harry has made himself vulnerable to Ollivander, purposely so, uniquely so.

It isn't a human gesture, but neither Sirius nor Remus is blind.

" _What_ are you?" Harry had almost forgotten about Sirius and Remus for all that this little 'show' was for their benefit. Ollivander rests his hand gently on his shoulder, and Harry had not realized he was so tensed, ready to flee or fight. He does not look up, and let his godfather and favorite werewolf, make of _that_ what they will.

This is another gesture for Ollivander, one that he takes up without hesitation – what the wand-maker says can make or break Harry, so he listens just as keenly as the wizards.

"My nephew, from the Isle, he is a little more human then I. I take it he's slept with you?" When Harry jerks his head up at Ollivander, he finds himself being looked over – then a glance to Sirius and Remus, it's a decidedly _amused_ look. Harry isn't sure how to feel about that, because he knows his Ollivander – not this one. What right does one stranger have to judge another near stranger? Only, this isn't the case – not really.

"Whatever would my brother say?" Ollivander teases, but Harry tenses – he forgets for a moment that this isn't _his time_ , isn't _his_ Ollivander – he _knows_ both of Ollivander's brothers, and when Ollivander's eyes widen with a look, with curiosity and with something like incomprehension rather then shock, Harry merely smiles to hide.

"What he always does, I imagine." Ollivander's hand has not left his shoulder, and it is a reassuring weight that Harry can not begin say how grateful he is for.

Sirius looks between them, having some experience with family disputes, seeing something of his own family in this. Harry had realized they'd let more of the truth peek out then he'd intended, and wonders again if that was what Ollivander had intended. It's ironic, the bond of family, of husband, wife, and child, it's supposed to be the strongest support, yet it can break and tear into you – hurt you – like nothing no other bond can. It is love, after all.

"Why did you have us leave the way you did?" Remus blurts out, as if he can not help himself. Perhaps he blames himself – his curse – for Harry turning his back on them, wanting nothing to do with him – them.

"I was late." Harry frowns, as he pretends not to know that what he had done was on purpose, it is one of the harder things he's done in his life – but not the hardest or worst lie. Harry with a shrug looks to Ollivander, as if he cannot grasp what was wrong with what he has done - and needs to be told.

"You really aren't human, are you?" Sirius snarls, but there is relief in it; such a betrayal as Harry had given would never be truly forgiven – but Harry isn't human (he was, but he _hasn't been_ – not really, and not for a long time) and there have been many misunderstandings between wizards and witches and non-human people in the past. Enough for pure-blooded wizards and witches to grasp that the _truly_ magical creatures and peoples think differently, have a culture they can't truly understand. It isn't as easy as meeting and greeting.

"No." Harry says with a smile, because he isn't – and he can't pretend to be – this 'play' with Ollivander has taught him that much very quickly. He'd slip up if he tried playing human, perhaps in his own time he would be the better actor, as was his nature – but in this time and place, his strangeness is showing like sunlight behind the moon in eclipse. It was his bond with _his_ Ollivander that makes him less then human and more akin to Ollivander, Harry Potter had been becoming _something else_ , something like a god out of ancient lore, for a long time.

"Why don't you know your own name?" Remus asks, frowning – if anyone could piece this puzzle all together, it is Remus – and perhaps Hermione. Yet they wouldn't want to know it, not really, and that is what protects Harry most of all. He'd practically have to say it for them to believe he's _their_ Harry: out of time, out of mind – so the sang goes. Harry preys so.

"I know it, but it isn't mine - it's been taken from me." Let them make of that what they will, but it isn't as if this is the first time he has gone by, used - or outright been known by other names before. As well, it can only help him, to have their sympathy. Harry locked eyes with Remus, tilting his head in curiosity.

"Now for a question of my own; why do you have two wands?" Harry hadn't made those wands, but he had _felt_ them; had touched the surfaces of their cores like a stone being skipped across still water. They were old enough that Remus must have had them for a long time, time enough to have known their memories of Hogwarts.

"You know what I am; I have been warned often in my life, that for the lightest _normal_ offense, my wand would be snapped – like Sirius here." Remus nudges his shoulder, as if to hide or disguise Sirius's flinch; all Harry glimpsed of what was clearly a painful memory. They both grin, though it is with some measure of the pain of a shared past; something, clearly, that neither wizard would give up.

"Still, you haven't answered 'Rius; _what_ are you – both of you?" Remus inhales, as if catching a pleasing fragrance. Harry goes very, very still; those gold eyes, wolf eyes, are locked upon him in disbelief when they open.

 _Please, no_ …Harry thinks it so loudly, Ollivander must hear – but he can say nothing.

A werewolf, he had _known_ – but forgotten what it _meant_. Those fearsome animal instincts, and senses; _hearing, sight, taste, touch_ – and worse, far worse of all: _scent_. Remus could smell him, _smell Harry_ where Harry should not be, when _Harry_ could not look like this.

Recognition flashed like lighting and he could hear his heartbeat pounding like thunder that look, that _knowing_ froze Harry where he stood; he was like a bug caught in amber.

"Ha-…? Harry…!" Remus gasped like he could not –quite – breathe, it was choked. Those gold eyes pleaded with him, _say something – say no – change_! Harry slowly shock his head, but not it denial of the words, but of the silent entreaty.

"What? Remy?..." Sirius tensed and jerked upright, like a puppet on strings. His wand was pointed at Harry's heart – and he _couldn't move_ , not yet.

"He, _he is Harry_ –" Remus accuses, not noticing the wand in Sirius's hand; his has eyes only for Harry – a Harry he does not know, but is in the here and now.

"He can't be." Sirius sounds like he can dismiss it – those words, the truth, yet his wand hand lowers, and he looks again.

"Yes, yes I am." Harry sighs softly in regret, and raising his empty hand to them – they won't strike him down, not now. Not ever. They can't, they love him.

"You won't remember that, I'm sorry, but you can't." His magic gathers in his fingertips, slow as if as reluctant as he is to do this; he hesitates as his hand is trembling. He fears this, and asks if this is really a betrayal– the wrong choice- he is about to chose; Ollivander takes his hand.

Harry sags back in relief, though he feels as if he's about to drop to his knees.

"No, Harry. I know you, you won't do this." His hand is still shaking, but it isn't just his hand he realizes, he's trembling. He's so glad to see Ollivander, to be at his side; to help him choose.

"What choice do I have?" His gut twists at the thought of taking a chance, let them know him (how will they react to what he's become? – to knowing whose bed they've shared, what he'd meant to protect them from at the start?) or, or not (strangers, strangers again) and that – that is surely worse. It is either know them as near-strangers, or know them too well and have them _know him_. Who he is (does he even want know himself anymore, let alone have them know him?), what he's become; he can't hide it, what's happened to him since they died in his own time. It'll all spill out like this, because Harry isn't human enough to _play_ , to pretend to be what he isn't.

Will they even _like_ him (let alone, can they/will they still _love_ him)?

"There is always a choice, this isn't right. It isn't humane. They deserve to know you." Ollivander makes the choice for him, takes it from him, even with the word _'Obliviate'_ at the tip of his tongue.

"Thank you." Harry says instead, softly; he is grateful, even if it isn't true.

"Ollivander…" It's cold and hard, those words, like the ice of Sirius's eyes.

"What have you done to my godson?" Sirius's wand tip is glowing, boiling, simmering, and a seething hateful green.

"He hasn't done anything, Sirius. Where I come from, he's dead – you're all _dead_." Harry gets in the way, taking a step forward, with Ollivander behind him. He's never imagined putting himself between those who've been like family to him, but here he is standing among them; like the middle of a wheel, dividing them, connecting them.

"Harry…how long has it been…? How old are you?" Remus asks, gently, reaching out to him with words alone, even if it is obvious to anyone's eyes that he'd embrace Harry if he could. Harry blinks away the wetness in his eyes, and wonders if Remus really would, if he knew it all.

 _He will know_ , Harry decides no matter how painful it is, looking Remus in the eyes.

"Years, I don't know, not really – that's the honest truth of it. I've lived in two different realms since I was sixteen; the fairy Underhill, and outside it is Voldemort and the war. I look there about thirty, and when you leave Underhill the years add up, so I suppose that's how long it's been for them. Not for me." Harry shrugs his shoulders, as if to move his words away from him, distancing them.

"It doesn't matter." Sirius says, bridging that distance as if it's simply not going to be there.

"You're here now, and that means everything is going to change." Remus agrees, reaching a hand out, cautious but willing.

Harry stares at it and feels, feels a lot of things he'd thought he had forgotten how – love, upwelling and lifting, certainty and trust and truth – and painfully, hopes and doubt warring within him. They have a Harry, younger – a better person then he is, more human then he can ever hope to be; why take both? Why risk him?

"Your not alone here, Harry." Ollivander promises softly from behind him; Harry's been broken for so long, he doesn't know if they (or anyone) can fix him. Yet they are willing to _try_ , and that's more then anyone has ever done.

"I know." Harry's voice is rough, broken – but healing: like he is, like he will.

They reach out to touch him – to reassure and sooth and steady, and he shakes, but he does not break.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm holding with certain facts of Ollivander's name, one – "Olli" might refer to olive (like the tree, thus tree wood/wand wood) and "Vander" means protector (of man?); while also being similar sounding to "Winter". So it refers to both his skill (a wand-maker, which protects wizards/witches) and his nature (winter, snow).
> 
> The "winter" part, I obviously made up all on my own; moons just remind me of winter.
> 
> "An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop." –Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone


	4. Tumble Dry

There is nothing that Harry dislikes more then the feeling of being useless. When a glint of light catches on Sirius's wand, and the wand core hums and echoes in the shadows and dark of his mind, Harry rejoices at the fluttering idea he has - a _useful_ idea.

Sirius and Remus had had no qualms with crossing the boundary of the wand maker's counter to reach out and touch him, cradling him against them as if he were something precious and breakable. He lounges lazily against their touches, allowing it - finding comfort in them. He's long known his childhood made him touch and attention starved, and this would near be too much, would overwhelm him – if he hadn't felt so welcome and wretched.

"Say, Sirius?" Harry murmurs into his godfather's ear, coarse shoulder length black hair tangled against his cheek and nose.

"Yeah…?" At the question in the answer, Harry pulls gently away and back, finding Sirius in front and Remus at his back and Ollivander at his side, as always - as Harry is determined to keep him there. This time.

"I have an idea." Harry claims, the triumph blooming in his voice like a deadly flower. In his own time and place, people have learned to fear him for less dangerous words then those alone. Remus and Sirius exchange reckless grins, they are loyal to him – they love him, and Harry finds his voice before the thick lump building there can swallow it up.

"How would you feel about goblins having wands?" Harry muses with a smile he knows is full of mischief. Grey eyes widen, and a dog like grin pulls at whiskered lips and a barking laugh echoes in the corners of the dusty shop.

"Brilliant…." Ollivander observes in acknowledgement, his silver eyes full of fondness. Whatever else Ollivander may come to think of him, Harry is -right now- very proud of that soft worded compliment.

" _That's_ your grand idea? Give the goblins wands at the _beginning_ of a war that will already divide us s a people? Make the war a forked thing – from within and out?" Remus frowns at him, at the three of them – love and loyalty are grand and great things, but they are not simple trust. Harry hasn't earned that yet.

"Oh, I didn't say the wands would come _free_ for the goblins, a deal must be made or they would suspect us of treachery." Harry runs his eyes over the shop and its counter top, and when his eyes seek Ollivander, he finds approval there in a nod of agreement. This place stands in the midst of Diagon Alley, a place that has always been protected by wizards and witches. So they took Ollivander's Wand Shop to one be their very own, a maker for their wands alone.

It wasn't though; it had never been made to be what it had become.

It was time for a change.

"Ollivander, old friend, I'm afraid I must say I've the mad urge to ruin your shop. Best collect the all the little rare bits, you two," Harry wiggles his fingers at Remus and Sirius as if in 'hello', "do help him?" Harry smiles so charmingly it isn't until Ollivander with a laugh moves to do as he is told, that his words, what he's actually _said_ starts to sink in.

"Are you _mad_? _Ruin_ Ollivander's Wand Shop? In the midst of Diagon Alley?" Remus demands, getting in Harry's way as he moves as if to leave the shop. His wand cores, like the sea, approaches him and retreats, unsure of friend or enemy.

"I did say it was a _mad urge_." Harry agrees, making a shooing motion to urge Remus to work in helping Ollivander. Sirius Black turns in the sea of his confusion to the only seemingly sane one, with a plea upon his lips.

"Aren't you going to _stop_ him?" Ollivander looks to the wizard, who takes a step away and back, there is something more _foreign_ in that mere look, then in any word or look or deed Harry could yet match. Harry envies Ollivander that power, and pities him for it.

"Why should I?" Is all Ollivander says as he moves though the shop, pulling a single trunk from beneath the counter. There are endless depths in that trunk, Harry knows. It's the single irreplaceable thing that Ollivander treasures, all the rest – all of it is just for show. Wizards and witches, after all, are greatly fond of a good show.

"I've got it here, Harry. Do as you will." Ollivander allows with a nod, pulling Sirius to his side and a shimmer of power envelops them. It isn't magic, its something much rarer, something magic has no defense or power against. There should be no danger in what Harry is about to do, but magic is wild and unpredictable at the heart of a wand core.

"Isn't this your home – you're life's work?" Sirius asks, baffled.

Ollivander gives him a look with something like pity.

Harry's fingertips tingle, as he causes every unclaimed wand in the shop to glow or float or spark. They respond to his presence, his mind and his magic –they rejoice, they obey.

"No, this is far from my home, and I've been here too long if wizards and witches think that wands belong to them alone, as Harry has pointed out." Ollivander acknowledges and with that he smoothly gives up any formal claim or responsibility he held for the wands and their cores.

They are Harry's now, to do with as he wills.

" _Be free._ " Harry whispers to the wands and their cores, and they do, with sound and light they rejoice. Magic, after all, like anything wild - is meant to be free. Capturing that magic is why wand makers use for the cores of wands _magical_ beasts or beings.

There was no wand here with magic as its core; all the unclaimed wands here were as magical as sticks. Harry wipes his hands together, as if to remove dust, and bows with an extended hand for Ollivander to take.

"Shall we, a poor wand maker and his apprentice, now go seek refuge among the goblins?" Harry teases, even as Ollivander does not hesitate to take his hand, his other hand full of the claim on the trunk in his safekeeping. Ollivander nods nobly, while the two wizards watch the going on numbly.

"I do not see any alternative." Ollivander agrees, stiffly, even as his lips curl in amusement.

"Are you coming along, then?" Harry asks over his shoulder as he guides Ollivander out the door. He doesn't look back, for he can hear their footsteps clearly on the cobbled streets.

At the next set of doors, golden bronze set in walls of marble white, they face are ones lined with a verse that in Harry's own time is still full of threat – a threat that the Dark Lord dares not cross with wizards and witches still warring among each other.

Harry smiles to see those eloquent lines, and his attention, the change in his expression, is caught and studied by the pair of goblin guards.

Harry wonders what other expressions these two have seen cross the faces of wizards and witches at that threat against wrong, that promise of safety.

Harry does not touch those doors; instead he turns to meet the looks on wrinkled goblin faces, hooked noses looking down at him, even as they stand at a shorter height.

"I hold no debt to you, and neither do you owe me or mine. I am a stranger to you, but no thief, say instead a friend in need. You will know me as James – _Jim_ \- Elder; this is a part of my name and nature but and not my name and not all and wholly my nature. I am a wand maker, and this, my master Ollivander – all our knowledge is within your reach, standing at your door step." Harry's voice rises and falls in his words, like a chant, like a poem.

With a look between each other, the goblin at Harry's right tilts his head and speaks his own greeting a rhyme.

"Born and bred a wizard you are, yet raised to the ways of fae folk. James Elder we name you, friend to fae, beware the god that walks beside you and the wizards you'll lead in the waking of war." Left and right bronze doors are opened for Harry by the guarding goblins, they open the silver doors, and the double doors stay open as Harry walks through with Ollivander on his arm and Sirius and Remus following him.

As soon as Harry takes a step into the entrance, he feels the eerie stares of the host of goblins upon him. A wizard or witch would not know it, but these goblin men and women perched atop high seats, behind intimating counters, as if mere clerks doing a day's busy work are the family heads of a dozen ancient goblin clan bloodlines.

Harry meets those eyes, one and all, and bows. The goblin guard from his left speaks to that daunting audience, his voice clear.

"James Elder, friend of fae folk." Harry had named himself a friend, not a stranger, and this would be acknowledged – by some with curiosity and by some with honor. When he rises from the bow, solemn nods return his elegant gesture, a pact has been acknowledged in the making, an ancient and binding friendship between Harry and the fae folk, of which the goblins are a mere branch of.

"Gornuk speaks, what do you seek here? If not a vault for your keeping - or treasure not your own making?" It is just as well that is the first question asked of him, Harry had expected it.

"Ollivander and I would make wands for the goblins." There was silence; no murmur stirred the air, no cry, no cheer.

"Ragnok speaks, be warned that such a making could not be returned." A whole lifetime of use, for one goblin, one wand, after all: the wand chooses its wielder, and once chosen would not choose again.  
No wand but one chosen would ever work so well as one stolen. It was a concept goblins honored, why they did not take wands from wizards and witches, for the wand might work but it would not be theirs. The core of the wand would always be bonded to another.

To have a wand _made_ for a goblin, _chosen_ by that wand. It would put that goblin in the life debt of the wand maker. It was what Harry offered, that the whole of goblin kind would have wands, and the individuals in turn would owe a debt.

They had a title for those the goblin people owed a great debt to, one which could never be repaid: king. The guards still wore the colors of the last titled Goblin King, Godric Gryffindor: who had been passed the sword of Ragnuk the First, ironically, the _last_ of the true Goblin Kings.

"In friendship there is no debt." Harry smiled as he said it, for the very last thing he wanted was a kingship.

"Griphook, son of Gringott, speaks to say that you and yours are welcomed here." Harry looks to the first goblin he had met, he had had his suspicions to who Griphook was to the goblins: though wizards and witches might think that those who guided them to their underground vaults were less important then the "mere" clerks, it was in fact the opposite – they were powerful goblins, and no one could know the tunnels better then they that had built it.

"Bogrod will guide you and yours, friend of fae." Their self proclaimed guide then looks to Griphook who nods toward a hall where Harry glimpses stairs going upward, Bogrod leads them that way, leaving Harry with little choice but to follow.

Harry notices that the goblins lower their eyes as he passes them; he realizes then that it isn't out of respect, but of terrible and ancient bidding of awe, they do not dare look directly at Ollivander. Harry tightens his grip on this mirror mimic of his own dear friend and mentor, the touch is meant to be reassuring, but there is no relief in Ollivander's icy eyes, only a regret Harry's touch does not sway away.

The source of that regret and the goblins shyness of Ollivander is one and the same, of that Harry has no doubt. Harry can't linger on the past – not Ollivander's – not his own, so he looks ahead to where he is being led. They climb stairs until it seems there is only height to achieve, and no way down, no ground, no rest.

Harry wonders if that is what it would be like, to be what Ollivander is, a god. Harry is aware with fear, that he'll know for sure soon enough, and there will be no way back. He hears the feet of Sirius and Remus and is reassured that they follow, tying him to humanity.

The stairs do end, and the landing that stretches on all around them seems to encompass the entire building top, columns climb to hold the ceiling up and sheer sweeping curtains tuck beds away, but there are no walls or rooms, there is nothing but white walls framing windows and the sight of the split streets of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.

It's a view well worth the climb.


	5. To Work Again

Sirius whistles when he gets a glimpse of the sprawling space, but it's Remus who speaks, his eyes glued to the view the windows offer.

"What does this mean, a compliment of some kind?" His words are a low murmur in Harry's ear, wary of the goblin that surveys the towering floor with a sneer of distaste. It is not a compliment Remus fear's to have confirmed, and as its clear enough not the case for the goblins, the _disgust_ Bogrod holds for this view and the fresh air about it is refreshingly blunt.

Harry finds his lips twisting in humor, but does not answer. Goblins have keener hearing then a whisper can escape. The glance Bogrod gives Remus then is both dismissive and it's sort of people of the room but earnestly insightful. Disturbingly so, some might claim, but the goblins have long foresight of whom might come along in the old name of hospitality and friendship – as the building of this tower proves.

"We goblins may be fae of the earth, but _his sort_ is stifled below ground. They'd rather the heights and air." Bogrod nods to Ollivander, to Harry, in a gesture that Harry doesn't mistake to include them all, to include Sirius and Remus.

"I thank you for your hospitality, well met." Harry nods in tactful agreement, and if the huffily defensive goblin slumps a little in ease, Harry pretends not to see it and the others are not near enough _familiar_ with goblins to see it.

"What will you welcome in the 'marrow?" Bogrod asks with a tilted head, Harry had half forgotten just how _hospitable_ the goblins could be, when they put their minds to it. Enough that hospitable could become a curse: entire days could be indulged as wasted at a guest's pleasure, the planning for a guest was plotted for centuries prior, certainly well before Harry had been born. The fae were simply that sort of folk, the goblin's only more so.

"I would tour the vaults, and speak with wizards and witches who work here." A slow blink is the only sign of surprise that Bogrod shows, but he pivots and leaves without a word of complaint or argument.

Sirius, watching as the goblin descend the stairs until he is well out of sight, let's out a soft bark of laughter.

"Wasn't that a bit rude? You _telling_ them what you're going to do in _their_ stronghold?" Sirius isn't lecturing him, but truly curious and amused by the going on.

"It's to be expected, really. Otherwise they'd be giving us a well plotted run around that get's nothing done." Harry smiles for Sirius's sake, uneasily his eyes flick to the sky. Its vast expanse doesn't comfort him, though he's sure the goblins meant well. Certainly he thinks that the oddity is in him alone, for Ollivander stares out into the sky as if all the answers are out there. Maybe they are, but you'd have to reach for them, and in reaching, risk falling.

"Really? I wouldn't take the goblins for the lazy party type." Sirius scratches at his scruffy cheeks, and seeing it, a memory hits Harry with the visual, of Sirius mouth stretched wide around Harry's cock, of that stubble trickling sensitive lower skin.

"You'd be surprised." It's the break in Harry's voice, or some rougher tone, that has Sirius locking grey eyes with green.

Harry can't stop himself from twitching toward Sirius, his breath hitching in his throat with longing, his eyes darkening from bright green of grass to the green of rain wet leaves, lust spreads from his gut to tingle along his spine and limbs. His fingers clench against his palms, seeking control – Harry doesn't even know if that was a memory, or just _want_.

Sirius is looking at him, he's noticed the swift change that left Harry breathless with lust darkening in his eyes, of course he'd noticed – how could he not notice?

"Harry?" Remus inhales deeply, a dragging sound of primitive – animal - instinct peeking out to play.

Harry wonders, wildly, if Remus enjoys his enhanced sense of smell, the musky scent that comes from sweat and lust and….

And Remus is standing right at Harry's side, his nose tucking into Harry's hair, his neck – the venerable point where Harry's pulse beats in his ears like a roar. Harry can't think about where this is going, only want and react.

Ollivander's silver eyes glint at him in understanding, and with a soft puff of air – like a breath, Ollivander is gone.

A part of Harry is horrified that he's being so obvious about what he wants – no, what he _needs_ , suddenly and blindly he needs what's right in front of him, what isn't being denied to him – he can touch and taste what he sees, have what he wants, but by far and largely he's relieved enough to breathe the word that echoes loose his tensed frame.

"Finally." Remus licks at his neck, his pulse point, his ear. Sirius comes in closer, like a hunter, and Harry is all too willing to be his prey. Sirius licks his lips before the kiss, and Harry meets him eagerly.

When whiskered cheeks rub raw against Harry's skin and lips, he moans, and it's a plea. Remus moves swiftly to remove his clothes – like they planned to do this, and practiced when Harry wasn't looking. Harry has to wonder how many times Sirius and Remus have been together, how many times they've done this - taken another, a stranger, into their bed – how many times it _hasn't_ been Harry?

It near breaks his heart, the desperation that wells up in him, in a surprising rush of heat and need and _now_ , to meet them in their lust; to be the last, the only one ever-after. Its skin on skin, no clothing, not even socks.

Sirius hugs him, arms around and under, fingers scratching at his ass, teasing. Harry feels the bed suddenly on his back, the sheets cool against his burning skin. Sirius climbs atop him, as if it's his right and privilege. Sirius is kissing him, and it's a burn of whiskers and soft lips, when Harry realizes where Remus went.

He arches, groaning into Sirius's mouth, tongues twisting.

Remus laps at his dick, fingers plunging into him with a relish of relief. Harry is a moaning mess, he can't help it, can't seem to convince himself he should be _attempting_ to return certain lewd favors. He can't stand to do more then writhe on the bed covers and _beg_.

It babbles out of his mouth like a running spring, free and easy.

"Oh! Please, please do this, I want, I want you both, now, please, I'm burning – I need, I want, you, ah!" Some of those pleas, Sirius swallows greedily, but most of them fill the air between pants for breath and restricted movements. Harry doesn't realize that Sirius is holding his hands down until he tries to touch, and feels firm weight instead. Instead of any kind of proper outrage, Harry feels full of want and more and yes _, yes_ this is right, how it should be.

 _Maybe_ , Harry thinks dazedly, _I'm a bit too into punishment._ The thought flees at the hint and hard edge of guilt that would eat at him, consume him, and ruin – this, this need and want and perfection of flesh. How could he have done it? How could he have denied Sirius and Remus this – what felt so right to him? He'd pushed them away, but they hadn't gone, and now they were here and doing this to him and there was no room in Harry for anything else but what he felt they were doing to him.

Remus has his legs pulled up out of the way on his shoulders, his wet mouth on Harry's cock, and his finger –no, _fingers_ now – they wiggle together within his ass, more then one – but how many Harry isn't able to guess or count.

"You want this?" Sirius teases, voice low and thick. It isn't the only thing that's thick, Harry can tell from the press of a cock on his navel, where Sirius crouches.

"Yes, yes, anything – I'll do _anything_!" Sirius smiles with wicked delight, and straddles Harry's chest and shoulders, crouching over his face, cock looming above Harry's lips.

"Anything?" Sirius dares, and grunts when Harry opens his mouth and proves, _yes, anything_ – his tongue lapping along the length, his own saliva near choking him and if he does drown for this, it's _worth it_ – the feel of hard flesh pressing into his mouth and down into his throat, the dizzying smell and the taste of flesh.

"Harry!" Sirius shouts, and Remus' let loose a growl Harry feels in his bones, and the fingers pressing into him are out, something thicker and hotter by far pressing in by searing inches. It hurts like burning, like tearing, like something within him bursting out. Telling pleasure from pain is then beyond Harry, and there is only this, Remus riding his ass and Sirius fucking his mouth, and Remus and Sirius looking down at him with dark eyes as Harry can only hang on and be here, theirs, for what feels like forever.

 _Yours_ , Harry vows to them, to himself: he'll never ruin this, never threaten this feeling, this need and want, this pleasure and pain, never again will he try to push them away – if they want him so much, they can have him!

He comes with fingers twisting in the sheet, his hips shoving up gleefully.

Remus, seeing that – perhaps his face, his thoughts, while being _inside_ him, howls, surging upward like a wave and falling away to pant wolf-like at Harry's side. A rough tongue licks Harry's cheek, then Sirius snarls, pulling away from his neck and chest, moving lower and turning Harry onto his belly, ass raised and exposed willingly. Sirius up rises above him on all fours, and slips inside as if Harry he's home.

Sirius pants and thrusts and Harry struggles to keep his hips up, his arms crossed in front of his face to brace his body for Sirius to use, to plunder, to lay claim on – to keep. Fingers dig into his hips, his thighs, and the thought that he's going to bruise, going to be marked by Sirius, makes him whimper for more – and Sirius gasps and grunts and cums in him, easing out and laying at his other side.

Sandwiched between them, Harry can think of nothing better to do then to sleep.

So he does.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Harry wakes up to an empty bed and a goblin in his face.

"We wanted to let him sleep, Griphook…" Remus trails off, seeing too late that Harry is wide awake and watching him – them, as Sirius stands dressed in robes at his side. So is Remus, dressed in robes that is – Harry thinks that's too bad, that both of them are dressed and Harry is still in bed and naked as sin.

"Why? Ollivander stated he had requested to wake." Griphook eyes the two suspiciously, clearly thinking them up to no good, and what had they done to Harry that Harry hadn't heard his approach? Harry snorts. He moves under the sheets thrown over his hips for modesty's sake, and catches Griphook's eye. Naked as the day he was born, Harry slips out of the bed, eyeing the sheer curtains and shaking his head.

"You know that joke, Griphook, about wizards and witches being ever so modest for all those clothes?" Harry nods toward Remus and Sirus, dressed and up, looking a bit scandalized but certainly possessive at Harry's state. He's bruised and bitten and Harry knows that without looking in a mirror that his hair is a wild mess.

Griphook blinks at him, slow and wide eyed, and nods as if Harry is imparting wisdom from the gods, which he is, sort of, even if Harry isn't quite a god – yet.

"They are lying liars who lie." Harry waves to the wizards, as if swearing off all sex with wizards and witches for life - and Remus coughs, turning only slightly red under his auburn hair.

Griphook cackles most gleefully.

Harry finally pulls on his robe, slightly wrinkled, and decides – just as punishment for Remus and Sirius to _think about that_ all day – nothing else. It'll also reinforce his words to Griphook, who eyes Remus and Sirius as if considering what – if any clothing at all – is under their robes.

It's a question Harry is certainly asking them with his eyes.

"Is the knowing worth the findings?" Griphook asks then, more serious and somber, eyeing Harry as if remembering the rough look of him. Harry has had fights less violent then he likes his sex.

"Very." Harry purrs with a leer for _his_ wizards.

"As you will. Bogrod reported your asking for the vaults and for wizards and witches to speak with. If you'll follow me, I will guide you, and we have a most interesting curse breaker turned desk banker to meet and speak with you." The hint being that the poor fellow wasn't very good at being a desk banker, and the goblins thought he'd get along better with Harry to follow around. It also implied a great deal of trust the goblins were putting in the young man, to trust him with Harry safely, or indeed to perhaps protect Harry if the need arose.

With the way Griphook eyed Remus and Sirius, the goblin had his doubts to Harry's safety in their hands. They none the less shuffled almost guiltily after Harry and Griphook.

"My thanks be to you." Harry assured, before he took the first step down the stairs. Going down was swifter seeming then going up, so it seemed to take no time at all to reach the main floor and turn the corner from hall into entrance and come face to face with Bill Weasley, favoring black leather pants and boots, sheer red shirt that left nothing to the imagination, long red hair tied back into a pony tail, and a fang earring dangling from his ear.

"Bill." Harry says before he can think, grinning enough to split his face, while he drinks in the sight of one of his best friends – practically family. Then he realizes, _no scars_ , and Bill is looking at him with a confused if willing smile, a smile for a stranger.

"Do I know you?" Bill Weasley asks his smile turning into a slight frown. Harry sakes his head sadly, despair eating at him from within. He can only imagine the look on his face.

"No, I'm Jim, Jim Elder – Griphook told me your name." It's a blatant lie, but save for raising his eyes at Harry, Griphook only nods with a silence. Harry can feel the stares of Sirius and Remus at his back, and moves aside so Bill could see them as well.

Seeing Sirius, recognizing him, Bill takes a step back, hand going for his wand. Harry puts his hand to Bill's wrist before the wand can be put to use.

"Bill." Burning blue eyes glare into his, hateful, and it stings enough that the hurt in Harry's voice flows away with his next words.

"Think about what you're doing, what it means, I am a goblin friend, a _guest_ , and they are mine – if you threaten to harm them, let alone kill or bring the Ministry into this – you'll loose your job and the goblins will never give they or I up, worse, Gringott's will _lock the doors_." And no one, not even Harry, would be able to get them open and talking to wizards and witches ever again.

"That's _Sirius Black_." Bill hisses, as if Harry can't see.

"I know. It's not what it seems." Bill eyes a spot on Harry's neck, and Harry realizes what it is – what it must be, what it can only be. Harry doesn't flinch from that gaze, and doesn't dare acknowledge that he feels the sick weight of Bill's disgust.

"Enough." Remus growls from Harry's back, and Harry realizes as Remus shoves beside him that he'd been defending them, standing as if being between Bill and Remus and Sirius would and could protect them – without a wand of his own.

"Didn't your mother explain it to you? Sirius is innocent, Peter – _that rat_ you family had passed down to Ron – he killed the Potters, betrayed us for the Dark Lord, tried to kill Harry Potter." Harry had always thought that Remus was the best Defense professor of the lot he'd gotten, and the lecturing tone Remus takes certainly sends the message home to Bill.

It's sort of wicked that Harry is thinking of Remus using that voice in an entirely different –sexy - way. Harry would obey that voice, and Bill doesn't hesitate to either. Bill folds, head ducking red bangs bashfully into blue eyes, his wand tucked out of the way.

"Sorry." Bill spits to Sirius, taking a step aside. He was surprised, and after nearly a lifetime of hearing only bad things – learning to hate everything about Sirius Black, it can't be expected he'd react well upon first sight.

Sirius goes past without a backward glance, and Remus follows at his back, Harry is last but he overhears Bill speak with Griphook.

"Why did he look at me _like that_ , liker he _knew me_ , like he was _disappointed_ in me?" It's almost a demand, those questions. Griphook has only one answer that makes Harry wonder if Bill could understand it.

"He is _theos_." That word, it means _god_ , and it's what Harry will become, someday soon, and the goblins know it just as they knew what Ollivander was without a word.


	6. Scrub At Corners

It's funny, that word " _theos_ ", to the goblins it explains everything – for Harry it raises questions he's taken for granted as answered into everything he thinks and feels. At the sight of Ollivander, the source of those questions – his reason why – he feels eased, like those bumbling questions without answers raised hackles that needed petted down and soothed.

Harry sighs when Ollivander looks to him without looking for him.

"Are you coming along then?" Harry asks of him, and Ollivander eyed the entrance to the tunnels, without even a goblin near to point them out, and silently shakes his head. His instincts are just that good, that he _knows_ where Harry is in a room without looking, that he _knows_ the way into the earth without a goblin to point the way. Out of his shop, never able to return, it makes the little oddities Ollivander can't hide stand out in underline, he isn't trying to hide – so it's good the goblins knew without a word, and here Ollivander doesn't have to hide.

"There is work to be done, if you'll remember the goblins and their wands." It strikes him then what Ollivander is doing, yellow measuring tape flicking about the goblins like a stray bird caught indoors. They tolerate it so stoically that no wizards or witches are noticing anything odd, and Harry for their sake doesn't smile.

"I've not forgotten, but we can't use the ordinary woods and cores, they require something…fae." While the goblins were of a branch of fae nature, they were not precisely on good standing with the main family kin of the courts of fae: in fact, they had chosen to become outcaste, if Harry read and remembered what he'd guessed and been told in subtle hints.

That did not mean the goblins had no way to Underhill.

That way led undoubtedly, downward.

Ollivander nodded absently the acceptance of this, and waved a hand as if dismissing him. It was truly a gesture of dear parting, and Harry looked away least he betray himself with some daunting expression.

Instead he looked to Sirius and Remus, and smiled charmingly.

"Well, well, may I trust you both with the keeping of Ollivander? Do not let harm come to him, nor let him go off alone. He's the keystone to this endeavor." Harry did not have to look to Ollivander to feel his stare on his back, or the rolling of silver grey eyes. He kept his tone light but firm, and ignored the disbelieving looks that Remus and Sirius threw each other.

"Hold it! you're going _down there_ , alone?" Sirius rarely sputtered when he meant to snarl, and Harry took a twisted delight in the way Sirius' eyes flicked over the gathered goblins quietly eyeing him, as if pleading help - and the wizards and witches who hadn't a clue to what was going on here. To make this truly historic, Harry well knew he needed the full favor and backing of the court of fae – both of them, at that, with the goblins he had a way through the doors, but he must stand on his own before them.

No presiding godfather for a guardian, or powerful and protective wizard lovers at his beck and call. Such ties could be felt by the fae, and they would not respect Harry for bringing it before them.

"I go with the friend of fae, nothing would dare a goblin's wrath beneath in the vaults. Bill will better redeem value and face going with us." Griphook raises his sharp chin in protest, seeming to be offended at Sirius not noting the protection his presence brought Harry, goblin friend of fae. Harry alone had claimed that title and tie, and now he must prove and support that claim in meeting the court of fae face to face. He would not put his friends – family – lovers, in danger by dragging them down with him. It was better this way, and Griphook approved of it, wanted to prove his worth and redeem the way Bill had acted in the eyes of their goblin friend.

Bill frowned down at Griphook, and Harry was loath to bring him – no great friend of his here and now– into this all unknowing. It simply doesn't sit well with Harry, that friend or not, Bill Weasley doesn't know what he's getting into.

"I am no greater danger with them then you, Sirius." Harry urges softly, a truth that Harry isn't referring to the Griphook and Bill, but a truth about the court of fae that isn't lie. They will think he means them to respect his escorts, so as not to insult the goblins.

It is better they don't know the goblins would sooner cut off a finger then take insult by a wand-maker that names himself a friend of the goblins, a friend of fae. The protection of Gringott's heir and a wily curse breaker are the least of resources that Harry could claim from the goblins: he _could_ have the backing of an army and the dozen high clan heads of goblin to surround him.

That he does not earns him better standing among them, their earnest belief in him a drink for a dying man, a feeling that makes him reckless and willing.

He sees the way Remus eyed Bill anew, that that claim offered little reassurance in it's weight, with Bill's reaction to Sirius freshly imprinted upon a wolf's mind and senses. Better that neither former teacher nor godfather know to where _exactly_ Harry is going alone, best they think it's only the vaults.

That open distrust that _disdain_ from Remus ducks Bill's head in shame. Harry almost expects the full grown curse breaker to shuffle his feet like an earnest child gone awry. That he does not only reassures Harry on the part of his self control, not maturity.

"The sooner I do this, the sooner we'll all have the fun of going to the Ministry of Magic and _declaring_ Sirius Black a innocent, goblins armed with wands at our back! Think fondly of that while I do a bit of a tour?" Harry pleads, and with the memory of other less innocent but no less earnest pleas they had granted spilling from his lips, perhaps it encourages them to go along with Harry's mad plan.

Whatever the workings of it, reluctantly Sirius spills his reserve with a shrug; it's for Remus to say yes or nay. Amber eyes glint with the promise of death if his trust is misplaced, as Remus locks eyes with Griphook and gives a reluctant nod.

As that is surely the least of Harry's worries if this fails, he gives a cheery grin and two hugs gained before a wave of his hand for Ollivander sends him on his way. With the door closed shut tight behind him, Harry turns to Bill.

"I do not _care_ if you do not like me, or the company I keep, wizard. I do not pretend with you now to go on a tour of the worthy and wealthy goblin vaults. To send a willing man armed against an enemy he knows nothing of is a dreadful thing to me, as I have seen many such men die where it might be prevented. So I warn you now, we go to the court of fae, this goblin and I. If you go with us, take heed that I will do what I may to bring you out again alive and keep your mind and body as you went in. If you turn aside now, it is not as a coward within the court of fae, but I will have your binding vow that you will not speak of where I go to those that love me." Harry met Bill's eyes throughout his pretty speech, so the wizard – his friend in heart – would know Harry for the truth of his words.

Bill swallowed it down, looking aside while Griphook pretended not to hear, sitting at the front of a cart on railed that went down and down out of sight in the dark. There were no lights along the tracks, as wizards and witches with wealth below might prefer.

"Damn you to Morgan Le Fay's hell, I'll go." Bill cursed, bitter at being questioned in loyalty.

Harry chuckled, and looked over his shoulder to say, as he claimed into the cart.

"That is precisely to where we are going." Harry didn't think Bill believed him, stomping into the cart in Harry's wake. He'd learn better soon enough, and with a glance to Harry, Griphook set the cart in motion, down it went, with dark so thick it swallowed sound and sight.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed it in; this was as close to death as one such as he would come. Down and down, into the deep and falling faster, Harry only opened his eyes when the cart halted with a protesting squeal. Griphook had gotten out and knocked now on a door of wood inlayed with gems that gave off shimming light.

Bill looked to Harry, and his hesitation was clear on his face. Harry gave him a grin, meant to be a reassurance, but clearly anything but.

"Seelie Court, take heed the knock of goblin kin!" Griphook called at the door, Harry and Bill standing at either side of him. The door leveled up and away, as if it had never dared to bar their way. Harry took a breath, and held it, to see the heaven of a fae court gathered in a sprawl before his eyes.

The walls were not out of earthen dirt or stone dust, but proud standing trees lining the room and halls, as if pillars, arching up and reaching to twine in a roof of green. All was open air, and the floor was a carpet of spring flowers and green grass. At the heart of it sat an old women enthroned, there was dignity in her and nobility that came from birth and a long life. She wore her age boldly, and it suited her, with cotton white hair and pale eyes and skin smooth and white. She was not human, after all. She was a mother.

At her right side was her daughter who sat in the grass as if a mere girl, not a woman grown with a girl child blinking up at Harry as if he were some cloud's shadow unexpectedly to cross the path of her sky.

"Mother of Summer, Queen of Seelie, and Lady of Spring, I am a friend of the fae." Harry went to his knees before them, before their door, not daring to speak or intrude on this family further. Bill looked down at him prone on the floor with wide eyes, but didn't dare move, or look up at the three, instead he froze and Harry did not blame him for it.

"Are you really?" Asked the little girl sweetly, sitting cuddled and cherished in her mother's lap. Her question demanded an answer; one Harry willingly gave, daring looking up fondly at her with a smile.

"Aye, Auxesia." Harry felt the heavy eyes of the Queen of Seelie turn up to regard him anew, blinking slowly as if waking. Harry stayed very still caught in that gaze that could bless or damn him in truth. Harry realized his danger, keenly, he should have waited for a introduction from Griphook, but he had spoken as if he knew them – as well as he knew them in his own time and place. That mistake could cost him.

Auxesia, Lady of Spring, giggled charmingly. Harry did not mistake that soft sound for the danger of his death passing, but it's coming - like the approaching storm.

"You know my daughter, you know us." The Queen of Seelie spoke, at her words, the garden, the heart of the Seelie, went silent and still. It was disturbing, that a place that looked like it should have bird song and singing maidens was a grove tucked into Underhill. Harry did not doubt that unseen eyes were focused upon him, he was mad to want this so dearly – the attention of the court of fae.

"How…?" The Mother of Summer demanded, squinting down at Harry as if she might still answer her own question by memory and sight alone.

"Suffer my memory, my word for no offence meant." One did not ask the Seelie, one did not question them, nor dare thank them.

"Where then will we find you?" In what _time_ , the Mother of Summer meant. Harry licked his lips, gaze on the grass at her feet.

"Now, as then, Damia – I come as a fugitive of war, its heart, its end. Your dearest friend…." Damia, Mother of Summer, stood to walk to where Harry knelt prone at her door.

"No friend of mine shall suffer the growing dark or cold. None of my great family has suffered to taste the dirt for my favor, rise up and take my hand, little theos." Damia petted his hair, and cradled his jaw when Harry looked up at her, his living green eyes bled silver, and Damia smiled, her own silver eyes shined, and the dark of the doorway drew away, leaving Harry on his hands and knees in the grass, with Griphook and Bill still standing silently at his side.

Harry dared to offer his hand to her, and she took it firmly and brought him to his feet with her grip alone.

"Your memory, if it pleases?" Damia asked with a gentle smile that hid steel.

Harry nodded, and brought his finger to his head, from the hair there he brought forth a silver thread that he offered to Damia who took it in her free hand – their hands still joined in a grip that it was not in Harry to break – and brought the hair to her own lips, with a dart of her quick tongue, Damia swallowed his thread of memory.

"Ah, I see. Hegemone." Her grown daughter with a crown of gold over her brow, looked the Mother of Summer with a crown of silver, and Damia pointedly bowed her head to Harry.

"We name this one James Elder. We name him fosterling of the court of fae. We name him favored of Damia." Boldly the grandmother brought Harry's hand to her lips to kiss. Hegemone tilted her head in acknowledgement of this fact.

"We name you Jimmy, who makes us giggle. We name you friend of fae, so there is no lie in your claims. We name you as acknowledged, for grandmother makes no mistakes in family." Auxesia chirped, springing from her mother's lap to encircle Harry's legs in a hug. From the tangle of her wheat blond hair, blue eyes blossomed. Harry could not help but kiss her cheek.

"We name the theos born of the bond of Ollivander, son of Chione. We name you equal. We name you brother." Hegemone, Queen of Seelie, as her mother and daughter had before her, spoke. Thrice said by these three it could not be denied in the past, in present, and the future –that his place was here.

Hegemone head tilted to his, but neither now named equals would bluntly bow before each other. To do so would be an insult. Harry choked back on his feelings, least they spill from his lips unheeded, he could no more thank them now then he could before.

"What you seek here, you have found. A witness..?" Damia turned her eyes to Griphook and Bill.

"I witness." Griphook agreed, bowing his head before the silver eyed and snow haired grandmother.

"Aye." Bill drawled in agreement, eyes to the grassy ground.

"Aye!" It was a murmur that became a roar upon voices of the wind. From the shadows of trees, shy shapes edged closer to the lit glade.

Harry let his breath go, easy and free, and closed his eyes to hear and feel the warmth of air around him. It felt like home there could be no denying his place was _here_ ever after, and no one could deny him his rights or his name. He didn't realizing he was smiling until he looked to Bill and Bill smiled back, full of the same warmth.

Hegemone, from her grassy seat, gestured Harry to her side. Harry went unhurried, and settled on the grass beside her, there in the dirt Harry blinked to see the family of fae from which Hegemone had traced it back to the theos.

What made fae was the blood of theos, but to be theos was to be more. For one, theos had boundaries among each other, descending from the earth and sky made certain of it. There was the nature in parentage, and in personality –and of that power of an individual.

Ollivander, born of Poseidon, king of the sea and Chione, goddess of snow – daughter of Boreas great northern winter wind, out of Eos the dawn and Astraios of the stars, son of ruling Crius and Eurybia, mistress of the sea: while Eos was daughter of Hyperion of light, Theia of sight, the three – Hyperion, Theia, and Crius, children of great Gaea of the earth itself and Ouranus, boundary of the sky. Ollivander was in his nature – in the nature of his theos family – bidden above earth.

At the same time, Ollivander was Unseelie, as all children of cold and ruthless Boreas favored.

It was from the brother of Boreas, west wind Zephyrus of spring to which the Seelie descended, when Chloris, goddess of flowers and spring in her own right, became mother of Karpos and Carpo.

Carpo with King Ericthonius, the triple son of Hephaestus and Athena though raised up by Gaea, Carpo was mother of Damia, Harry traced that family line that Hegemone had drawn into the dirt. His eyes met hers, for if Damia was Mother of Summer, then Ollivander surely was Father of Winter.

Harry laughed then, a twisted sound that choked him.

Ollivander had never told him, and for what reason would his Ollivander had? What chance? All the fae of Underhill, Seelie and Unseelie, had welcomed Ollivander with open arms, and embraced Harry just as unquestioningly – as family. Now Harry knew why.

Caught between theos and not, Harry was closer tied to the fae, and in his own right – the broken tie with Ollivander would turn him into a theos…unless he took another path - unless he claimed a throne as King of Unseelie, and tied himself instead to Underhill. The Unseelie were deadlier by far, unpredictable and fickle, lawless - giving all fae a worse name, for Ollivander, Father of Winter, was theos, a god – and there was no fae King to claim the Unseelie, to rule them.

Harry could be that King of Unseelie, an inheritance from _his_ Ollivander.

"To be fae or to be theos, to what end." Hegemone met his eyes, and nodded her head, solemn and sure that the meaning of her words had sunk in.

"It is your path, it is your choice." Auxesia scrubbed the family line away in the dirt with her foot, and tugged Harry upward. Numbly, he followed the little Lady of Spring, past the door and into the cart of goblin making, she waved goodbye as he went away and up, out of sight, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to respond in kind. He felt Bill's worried eyes, and saw Griphook's white knuckles, and couldn't think of a word to say, to reassure, nor a motion to make to respond.

He felt lost, and all he knew, all he was sure of, was that Ollivander - _his Ollivander_ \- had had a great deal to tell him, and had died too soon. It was meant that when a theos died, as his Ollivander had, the bond would make Harry into theos - but it hadn't, and what Harry he had lost, the Dark Lord Voldemort had gained. For none could deny the marked bond between Voldemort and Harry, when it was as plainly upon his brow as lightning dancing in silver and gold light. Yet, Harry was still bonded to a theos - to his Lord Voldemort, and not human for it.

Far from it, as far as the theos had fallen and faded, the fae had risen.

Perhaps it was meant to be, that Harry has come to this time, this place, where he may claim the Unseelie of Underhill, a fae throne, to be King.

Harry takes a shaky breath as he sets eyes on Ollivander, again, and maybe it is Harry's pale face or shaken wide eyes, but Ollivander knows - can just tell - and enforces him, enfolds him in limbs and wind, and Harry finds the view of Diagon Alley soothes and settles him.


	7. Air Dry

Harry shakes in Ollivander's grip, like a leaf clinging to a limb and fearing the wind, fearing the fall. All around him is sky as far as the eye can see, he doesn't dare look downward. What his attention below might call out of the depths of earth, out of the realm of the dead and the immortal.

"Easy, easy." Ollivander sooths and Harry wonders why he should be easy at all. He fears, but he doesn't know the source, if it is humanity fleeing in the face of fae, if it is the nature of a wind-born theos free from earth, or the fae in him fearing being away from Underhill.

"Does it get easier?" Harry quips back, and Ollivander's laugh rumbles though his skin and bone.

"Easy isn't for the likes of us, we'd get _bored_." Ollivander says that word as if it's a real danger, like a death blow. Like a threat.

"Why did you never tell me?" Harry asks, turning the questions over in his mind and figuring this for the best way and time to ask. With the nature of theos being soothed around them, Ollivander knows his meaning.

"I am not he, and he is not as you now know me. You have shared your memories of us, and from what I know of myself I think it was in part for protection, you needed it among the fae, and I gave it freely. He– I – had lost much with war, parted from mortals and forced to flee to Underhill, there would have been the need for something of theos to remind me of my nature: to keep one such as me sane, to have a bond beside me." Ollivander spoke calmly of it, of protection offered, of protection gained. Harry laughed, dry and half a choking cough. He was near to insanity, near to tears; such was the nature of his body that he was torn by his own magic, his nature, his potential in power.

"That I know - that isn't my question at all." Ollivander knew that, but it was easier to start with what was known then to go into the unknown unheeding.

"I know." Ollivander spoke softly, if he felt sorrow or amusement, Harry was not touched by it at all.

"You came into my wand shop and knew my name, my mother's name, the nature of theos – how was I to guess you did not know what that _meant_? If it seemed plain to me, then it must have been so for your Ollivander, I can only guess." Harry glanced to Ollivander, and his silver eyes, his thin and wiry frame seemed like some wind spirit, that would flee upon a breeze.

"There was a bond already between Voldemort –and me, from the day I was supposed to die, and lived. _The boy who lived_." Harry spat those final words, like some cursed thing clinging to him.

"When you died." Harry begins, takes a breath, swallows, and tries again.

"When _my_ Ollivander died." Harry feels Ollivander nod at this, and does not know what to think, approval for working toward saying a fact without cringing and clinging to Ollivander as if the wind and wild might tear him away, or natural agreement?

"When you died, when my Ollivander died – I stopped living as mortals do – but Tom Riddle, already dead once, soul splintered asunder, he took your immortality from me, though _our_ bond!" It was this Harry had realized beneath Underhill, that Voldemort of his time and proper place was a god – a theos, was likely now King of Winter, with the host of Unseelie casting the long shadow over a world at war between Light and Dark, muggle and magic.

Harry's outrage was a thing thick in the air, something that could be sipped or swallowed down to spill over all.

"That is how the facts stand, and as our bond was meant to do it _protected_ you, sent you here, as the bond between you and Tom was meant, it _took_ from you – life, immortality. Now, my question to you, Harry – is what are you going to do about that? Here and now, or there and then?" Ollivander asked, softly as a whisper, as if he did not already know the answer – as if he feared it.

"First," Harry says with a soft rasp, not knowing if his words will be a list or a question set for Ollivander's approval, "first, Goblin's will have wands. Second, Tom Riddle's Diary I must trust myself to have done away with. I will take the Horcrux beneath us. Helga Hufflepuff's Cup is in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault, then Salazar Slytherin's Locket in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore will have Marvolo Gaunt's Ring, and within Hogwart's heart, Room of Requirement sits Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem."

"Will you cross Dumbledore? The Order of the Phoenix?" Ollivander asks this as if he does not mind, but Harry knows otherwise.

"Why should I? Three members of the Order stand below us, our goals are the same – and I better like the look of things with them beside me – or standing behind them." Harry leers, and Ollivander laughs softly. It is good to hear, and it makes all that Harry suggests seem a possibility rather then any difficulty.

Oh, but Harry is no fool, he knows it will be.

"What of your younger self?" Ollivander asks - as if to remind him of that, of a thing that Harry can not forget - would not forget, if he could: he cherishes that, loves this. This the second chance, his chance to see things _right_ , as they should be. As, he vows silently, _they will be_.

The question Ollivander is really asking is: _then what_?

"We will have to share. Elder ought to set the example, after all." Harry is teasing, musing, but he is as serious as he is not. He thinks of Sirius, of Remus, of Ollivander – all here, all alive and well: all of them – not _his_.

Truth is, Harry has no answers: he has the most deadly disease of all: hope.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

"What happened down there?" Is the first thing Sirius demands of Bill. He's seen what Bill did, what Remus did, that Harry had fled from the cart and Griphook, the vaults, Underhill, as if something hunted him. He had gone to Ollivander, and Bill had seen them stolen by the wind, flown up and away. As if distance might dull the memory.

They've seen that, but they've seen so much less.

"I- I can't say." The words tumble out of his lips, and Bill realizes them for truth. He can't say he hasn't the words: his tongue feels tied in a knot, a trap.

"It's Underhill we were welcomed in, back to the fae, and Elder is no mere friend of fae, he is _family_ , he is…a power, a potential." Griphook says simply, with a shrug.

"He is no fae." Remus says, and with his nose, he ought to know. Bill thinks that too, would agree, if he hadn't seen what he had. If he hadn't heard those fae speak of things he _heard_ but feels he shouldn't have. If he understands _half_ of it, Jim Elder – that fae friend, that goblin friend, would be a powerful foe.

"He might be. He is caught between fae and theos. Now he knows, now he _must_ be one or the other." Griphook agrees in his own way, and disagrees. Just like that, as if it is so simple, he walks off toward the stairs. He'll go to Harry, and Bill feels as if he must follow.

He ought to, but Sirius is in his face, his hands on Bill's shoulders, his sea storm blue eyes search Bill's demandingly.

"You know what theos is, what it means?" Bill has never believed in ignorance, has tried all his life to overcome his own ego born of being a pure blood wizard. Here is Sirius Black, who is pure blood and dangerously rich – if he weren't wanted for killing. If not for that fact, that he's supposed to be a murderer, Sirius would live a pampered life, a life of wizards and witches worshiping the ground he walks on. Of never knowing – never minding or caring – what else that is magical and strange and not human is out there.

There are magical creatures, immortal beings, which think of themselves as greater then any mere wizard or witch. They were born out of primitive, ancient nature. Their blood is golden flowing, a force of magic: the source of magic, of life. The fae are among them – lesser, but still of that blood, but the fae fall gladly to their faces in the wake of a slumbering theos.

Theos, which fell, which hid, which were abandoned by wizards and witches alike, and the reason muggles are less then they, was they worshiped the theos into mud and earth. That is why children with a muggle parent are called mud blood: out of resentment for what magic is lost to wizard and witch and the world.

Into a sleep, where the great natures of their primordial blood overcome their minds, their individuality: they were unified. In that unity of blood, they forget in sleep, a sleep like death.

"Gods." Bill says, because he believes it. He's seen it.

Sirius lets him go: goes in turn silent and still, shocked into it. Even pure blood wizards and witches (especially them) _know_ that ancient meaning – that hints, that lingers, what it meant: the longing, the want of power, to serve power.

Pure bloods are called such because they have a tie to the theos, to the fae.

Once, there was more to magic, there was a reason for chanting and dances and complicated spell casting, and wands: that magic was power, was force that drew from the ancient theos. Now history blurs it, says that simple is better, small words and motions.

Don't make too much of magic, you might wake the theos, the sleepers.

It's a dizzying and heady rush of want and _fear_ , Bill thinks – that that might be what is happening might be true.

So Bill climbs, and feels as if he's leaving the weight of the world behind. He wonders if the theos feel something of the same, if it might hint to the reason Harry was so pale and sick looking, fighting the call for silence and stillness and sleep of his theos nature.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

"Gods." Remus echoes faintly, softly, in the wake of Bill's words. Wizards and witches alike don't use that word; don't speak of the names of theos. Its better forgotten, better unlooked for, like the theos themselves.

But now, unlooked for, they've fallen into bed with a theos. Or someone very like becoming one, Bill claim rings in his ears – and there is no reason to doubt Bill.

"Harry." Sirius argues softly, urges that into mind and perspective. How can both be true, both be right?

School friends grown up together trade glances, they remember Jimmy Elder's touch and flesh, have –in fact -tasted it. They remember that power, that draw. The urge to take and possess, and give and protect: it was powerful, and maybe now Sirius thinks, not really natural.

Or, more then natural, _of_ nature: of magic.

Remus moves and Sirius moves with him, they follow Bill up the stairway, and when they reach the height of it, they hear Harry Potter, not theirs, but a stranger out of time and place that calls himself after James (which is as much his name as their Harry, Sirius's godson, Remus's student) to Jimmy – and Elder, which must be true enough.

"Wands I promised the goblins in word for deed, and wands Ollivander and I will make now for you." There he is sitting on the floor, with Ollivander at his back.

In his hand, between his fingers, he rolls stones. They are green and red and beat, as if a heart is within them. He buries them in a bowl of dirt, like seeds. He sits and waits, and is rewarded – from the bowl of dirt springs up a tree from bloodstones. It is Ollivander that sets out a hand expectantly, and the tree with its red bark and green leaves bows, and gives over a limb to break.

"Bloodstone red wood, martyr's stone at its core: six inches." Ollivander pronounces, not without pride - and Griphook takes what is offered him, what was grown and given freely by a tree born of stone seed. He looks at the wand in his hand with awe.

"Of course, with goblins, the wood would be grown from the core stone: there will be differences, variations – but this is a start." Sirius has never thought before of what goes into wand making, but it seems both simple and terribly unique magic. Remus has eyes only for that tree; of his thoughts Sirius can't glean any from his face.

"In return, anything." Griphook breaths his eyes on them filled with reverence, it feels wrong – and awful - and he means it as right.

"In Bellatrix Lestrange's vault is Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. I mean only to borrow it; I'll make no thief of you - though there will not much to return of an empty vessel." Harry – or Elder, who might be who Harry becomes, asks.

Griphook bows low, wand at his side, and it's a silent agreement.


	8. Sheen Of Polish

"Why?" Remus asks of Jim Elder, as Griphook leaves, going down the spiral of stairs sent by a god to retrieve a piece of Tom Riddle's soul. Bill stays, but is silent – it's as if he knows what's coming and wants no part in it.

"It is a Horcrux, one of seven. We'll take it with us to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place – the door of the Order. This time, I will not fail." Jim Elder vows, and Ollivander is still and silent behind him, guarding and watching.

"There are only five." Sirius protects, because he's heard Dumbledore explain it – in his own house.

"Two are living." Ollivander agrees, easily - as if what he says isn't against the _nature_ of things – and he ought to know, because the way between Harry and he is unified. Where one theos is, another is usually close by to be found. Sirius thinks he's found out the reason 'Jim Elder' is the way he is, and from the way Remus frowns, they are in agreement.

Two fingers are held up for them, and Jim Elder catches their eyes.

"Nagini," he says, tucking on finger to his palm.

"Me." He gives a reckless grin that both recognize as James's own, like father – like son, with teeth gleaming wicked white, which sends a chill down both Sirius's and Remus's spines. He'd chosen the name James – Jim – well for himself.

"This time, I'll die and be rid of Tom Riddle once and for all – this time I'll do it right. It's what went wrong the last time." He's serious and Sirius has never been more against a sacrifice for the greater good, as Dumbledore might claim. Remus makes a protesting growl, but does not speak – it's Ollivander, old and silver eyed like the moon – that dares speak.

"I disagree." Ollivander states, which Remus nods to, and Sirius does nothing to protest.

"It's me, or Harry." Sirius's godson, Remus's student: who is going into his Fourth Year at Hogwarts.

"Will you come back from that?" Sirius asks, shakily. Come back from _death_ , he's asking. Jim Elder is theos, Bill claims – maybe – or maybe not, but Sirius wants a answer from his lover's lips. Remus licks his own lips, as if remembering that first reckless night of lust – and the second, a sea of memory that tides them over for more a promise of return, it's as if he is preparing for bad news or to give a lecture. It makes Sirius nervous.

"With the Deathly Hollows? I might, or I might go to where I belong." By which he means either death, or that distant future that he hasn't spoken about. Sirius has a bad feeling about both.

"You know where the Horcrux are, that's obvious: what of the Deathly Hollows?" Bill finally speaks up, curiosity driving him to it. He doesn't know that Jim Elder is Harry Potter, Sirius sees that much – and Remus nudges his arm, for it's clear that Elder doesn't want Bill to know who he really is. What Bill does guess is that Elder, being what he is, has insights even the likes of wizards and witches do not, and so gain.

Three fingers stand against the light of a dying sun.

"Marvolo Gaunt's Ring – a Horcrux, holds the Resurrection Stone. It is in Dumbledore's keeping. Dumbledore also holds the Elder Wand. The Cloak of Invisibility? That was in his keeping, but he gave it up to Harry Potter before possessing the Resurrection Stone: an inheritance gift." The son of James claims, and there is no reason to doubt it.

Remus and Sirius both have very fond memories of that Invisibility Cloak, and they'd last seen it with Harry - the student, the godson.

"You had this all planned out?" Bill asks a tinge of awe in him. Sirius doesn't think it's good for him, this god-worship. But then, this is Harry (albeit an older and deadlier version, mayhap – but _Harry_ ) and he knows it won't go anywhere.

Remus catches Sirius's eyes, and he knows that – yes – he's being possessive, and yes – it's being noticed.

Harry only smiles, which could mean yes or could mean no.

"What then of your choice - between fae and theos?" Ollivander asks, his voice hushed – he means no harm in what he must ask. He does so because no one else will.

"There is still time, it will wait – this, this I won't delay." That's all well and good, but Sirius and Remus both know when it's business and when it's personal, the choice of what comes first ought to be –naturally - personal. Yet here is James's son, the Elder, putting his life and power aside in favor of the distraction of the Dark Lord. Putting their world and war before his own life and safety, surely safety – because between the two great powers of theos and fae is a bridge of relation, and it is perilous to walk too long between – to not choose is, in it's own way – a choice. The fall would certainly end in death, at such a height from powers.

Griphook steps from the stairs, Helga Hufflepuff's Cup in hand. Harry sees it, and his green eyes flash with silver light, the same moon grey of Ollivander's eyes behind his spectacles.

"Hand it here." It is an order, not a question or request, but Griphook does not flinch from those eyes that gleam like steel. He obeys, standing aside. Harry looks down at what is in his hand, and seems lost, seems not to see it. Sirius and Remus have both been very aware that this man is not _their_ Harry, there is something seducing strange in him. The power of magic calls to it's like, but with Harry's eyes like that, the silver lining of clouds, it's as if Harry had been hiding something out of sight within his very self, he'd been so alive and they hadn't thought to the cost, that someone so powerful must cast a long shadow to be so tainted and torn and tired.

They see it now; it has red eyes and speaks in a hiss.

Helga Hufflepuff's Cup seems to rot and blacken in his curled hands, his fingers are like claws of bone, clutching – draining, the cup is gleaming gold, and it should not look rusted. Yet they see it, and can not deny it, the thing that isn't Harry is hungry - the life and magic – the soul - of the Cup, of Tom Riddle himself - rises up, free in a dark cloud of smoke it twists like a whirlwind, going into Harry's lips - and Harry, with his red eyes and snake tongue, swallows it.

He looks up, the red eyes gleaming, and his grin isn't Harry.

Sirius jerks forward, ready to fight for Harry – for what has possession of Harry's body, but Bill and Remus hold him back before he gets too close. Ollivander sets his hand on Harry's shoulder, and the shadow of a soul that isn't his – that is Tom Riddle, growing stronger with Harry's own body and soul – like some nightmare parasite: turns to look at Ollivander.

Ollivander's eyes are silver fire, a warning – a calling: and the red eyes die with a wash like light of gleaming foam bubbling out of the dark red eyes.

Harry takes a breath, then another, as it is going to be alright. He glances to the four of them, and something in him seems to wilt, to flinch from them.

"Sorry." Harry says, as if it's his fault: he licks his lips as if he has a bad aftertaste in his mouth, "we'll go now."

Griphook takes back what is left of the Cup though it is melted of its fine designs and dull – as if in need of a good shine, for life. It isn't ruined, but it is a husk of its former glory. Griphook nods his head in respect, as if in goodbye. When he looks up again, his gaze catches Bill's who is keeping his mouth shut.

"We all have much work to do." Griphook agrees, and Bill can at least take a hint.

Griphook goes again, and his low bow is for goodbye.

"Where to…?" Sirius asks, because it is summer and Hogwarts is where most of the Deathly Hollows could be collected come school time. Not before then, and it's obvious that Harry isn't inclined to wait so long. That he doesn't think he has that time to waste.

Sirius hurts at that realization, and he longs to put James (James's) Elder (son) under his arm and keep him at his side.

He doesn't answer – not right away – what he does is put his hand to the floor, and the silver fades from his eyes as a green fire roars to life between his knees.

"Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place." Harry tells them, looking up as if in a dare – and then he falls into the fire, like it leaps up to consume him. Ollivander nods toward it, as if in agreement, or to urge them into following. Remus needs no urging, and is gone in flash of flame before Sirius can think to go or stop him.

He realizes, though, while looking at Ollivander looking at him, that the old theos isn't coming with them. This is Harry's choice to make, just as Ollivander did not go below the earth – he will not follow now and interfere.

"Take care." Sirius hears, before the world becomes a roar of green flame. _Of him_ , Sirius finishes, a vow a pure blooded wizard knows from birth to keep. The consequences for not doing so would be worse then death; he does not have to be told.

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place is exactly as Sirius remembers it. Nobel woods and bleak designs and dreary shadows, not enough light to keep the air clear and clean. It feels dirty and is dusty, and Sirius is shamed by that, he knows it shows a side of him he'd rather not see – let alone let the Order of Phoenix walk about unchecked within.

It makes him itch as if something is under his skin, his very blood protesting, but there it is, and _where_ is that lazy house elf to set it to rights?

Sirius Black takes a step out of the fireplace, and takes a moment for getting his breath back and to be grateful: for he had wondered where they would end up, it wasn't as if they'd used a Ministry _approved_ fireplace. It was downright dangerous what they'd done, but Sirius hadn't thought of it beyond staying with Harry. Because Harry the Elder _needed_ someone, both of James's boys did, and even if Sirius knew he wasn't the perfect first choice –or the best - he'd still do his damnedest.

Yes, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place is exactly as Sirius remembers – save for one very important thing. There is a white owl on the coat rack. _Harry_ , he thinks, his godson.

Yet it is the man who calls himself James Elder who seems most surprised, as he looks to the owl wide-eyed.

"Hedwig?" He asks of the snow white owl, who hoots – as surprised to see him as he is to see her: of that much Sirius is sure. She ruffles her wings and swoops to Sirius, he notices now the letter tied to her leg. She keeps still and silent, as if trying to prove something despite being kept waiting.

 _Dear Sirius_ , the letter starts, in that endearingly loopy sprawl that is Harry's handwriting – the letter mentions the Durleys (which is just _depressing_ ) – them being turned into bats by himself at Harry's bidding, which Sirius just grins at – and something that sends the wings of worry stirring at the depths of his heart – the scar, the same scar James Elder has now – had hurt his godson, and he feared Voldemort was near – and Quidditch World Cup tickets. Sirius handed it solemnly off to Remus, let him be the responsible one and give a lecture to an elder Harry who probably knew better.

"Your scar hurts and you go to the _Quidditch World Cup_?" Remus asks his voice full of frustrated disbelief. It would be out in the open, no doubt, with muggles near: a near perfect Death Eater target.

"Yes?" Sirius hears his answer, but writes a hastily worded reply –flying north, rumors –go to Dumbledore if that scar hurts – and eyes open, please. That's the gist of it, Sirius thinks as he turns the note over to Hedwig.

"Perfect." He says, as he watches the snow owl in the middle of summer: it's not as bad as all that, he'd tried to offset that oddity by sending ridiculously bight colored and sized birds to Harry, in hopes that muggles would ignore it once it became something that happened normally. He'd never asked if he succeeded, but Harry had seemed to enjoy the little (or not) oddities, which came from having magic. That had been enough for Sirius.

Now it was just another worry, if by the frivolous birds he had endangered one of the few important people to him.

"What was all that about? Who is this?"


End file.
